Topsy-Turvy
by the-Mad-Majesty-of-Muchness
Summary: Two years have passed since Alice left Underland, and now she's returned from China, but still feels homesick. Everything's all topsy-turvy and she can't stop pinching herself. She wants to go home. She wants to wake up. Why doesn't one of her friends come to wake her? One-shot based on the song "Topsy Turvy" from the Deluxe version of Almost Alice, first in a song-based series.


**I've been on this big AiW kick recently and I watched the movie on Saturday, so yeah. After listening to the Deluxe version of the Almost Alice CD on Spotify and hearing the song "Topsy Turvy" by Family Force 5 (I don't have the deluxe on my iPod, just the regular version, so I'd never heard that or "Extreme" before), this popped into my head so I started pounding out words on my keyboard, and...yeah.**

**ALSO, I was browsing the tag for the movie on Tumblr, and found an article someone had posted a link to, and it has been confirmed that May 27th of the year 2016 is going to be a Very Important Date, because that is the day that the movie's sequel is set to be released! Johnny and Mia will both return to fill their rolls as Tarrant and Alice, and while it didn't mention anyone else (either character or actor), I assume that the same will be true of various others, as well! Tim Burton will not be directing, however, that duty will be taken on by James Bobin, director of "Muppets: Most Wanted," and while it saddens me to think that Underland won't have that special touch of Burton Magic, I'm going to keep faith that Bobin will do justice to what it's like Down Below to the best of his abilities, because I've seen the newest Muppets movie, and I assure those of you who haven't, it was a fantastic movie that was handled beautifully (and I learned something new from it, which is that apparently, Ricky Gervais can not only sing and dance, but he can _tap _dance with impressive skill and that while his singing voice is nothing like you would expect in the very best way, it is also the sort that if you were only to hear it and not see his mouth moving, you would not be able to figure out that it was him singing). **

**Other familiar names from the previous movie are Linda Woolverton, who will once again be responsible for the screenplay (or script, whatever you prefer to call it), and the producers, Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd, and Suzanne Todd.**

**SO LET US ALL TAKE GREAT JOY IN THE FACT THAT WE NOW KNOW WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY THAT ALICE WILL KEEP HER PROMISE AND RETURN TO HER HATTER LIKE WE ALWAYS KNEW SHE WOULD EVENTUALLY AND FUTTERWHACKEN OUR OWN HEADS OFF! (and then let us cross our fingers that she remembers him this time)**

**In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this, and I will also be posting other song-based drabbles and one-shots as the urge strikes and as I'm hit with inspiration while listening or reading the lyrics to various songs, so be sure to keep an eye out for those, as well. :)**

**Oh, and before I forget, I own nothing and nobody mentioned in this fic, I have no claim of any sort to anything or anyone that is in any way, shape, and/or form related to any of the _Alice _movies, franchises, or books upon which all of the aforementioned movies, franchises, etc. are based, I do not own or have any claim to, nor did I in any way assist in the creation of the song "Topsy Turvy," nor am I affiliated with the band known as Family Force 5, I am not making any sort of profit from this and wrote it purely for the enjoyment of myself and anyone on this website who happens to take an interest in it. Also, I reserve the right to plead the fifth concerning all of the above matters should I ever deem it necessary to do so for any reason that may arise and present itself. That is all.**

* * *

When Alice returned home from China, the first thing she did upon stepping out of the carriage that had taken her from the docks to her family's home was greet her mother and Margaret (and, if only for propriety's sake, Lowell). The very _next _thing she did was, without bothering to remove her coat (funny, but she hadn't even noticed until now that she was wearing the same outfit she'd had on the day she had boarded the ship two years ago at the start of her journey), head out onto the back patio and, without even pausing as she removed her coat and tossed it carelessly aside, into the grass, still wet from a recent shower, threw her arms out to the sides, her head back so that her face was to the sky, which was beginning to clear up, and closed her eyes, smiling to herself as she spun around, the blue skirt of her dress twirling around her legs and her blonde curls fanning out around her.

She stopped, pausing for a moment as she just stood there, looking up at the thin beam of sunlight that had succeeded in piercing the clouds just a moment before while she was busy spinning. Then, as Helen and Margaret emerged from the house and stood on the patio watching, Alice untucked her silk tie from the black waistcoat that accompanied the dress, shirking her fingerless gloves and lightly tossing them over her shoulder before undoing the tie and rolling up the long sleeves of her white bodice to her elbows. Then, turning her face towards the sun again, she took a deep breath and let it out as a smile spread across her face. Suddenly unable to contain herself, she began to giggle, then laugh, loudly and without restraint, spinning around even faster than before, snatching the tie from where it hung around her neck and gripping it for only a moment or so before letting it fly out of her hand and not at all caring when it was carried off to heavens-only-knew-where in the gardens by a light breeze that had sprung up suddenly.

"I'm mad, Mother!" she called as her spinning turned to carefree dancing and skipping and twirling. "I've fallen into madness, and now I'm looking for a key so I can open a door I can't fit through! It leads to the most beautiful place, though! It's a place that's so full of wonder!"

Just as abruptly as it had begun, her laughter and giddiness came to an end as she stopped dancing and came to a dead halt, staring off towards the garden with a look on her face that could only be described as wistful and longing in a strangely bittersweet sort of way. She found herself filled with a yearning to go off in search of rabbit holes and pitch herself headfirst down the very first one she happened to come across, no matter where it was located or who saw her or anything else, just so long as it meant she could see all her dearest friends again. Somewhere in the background, she was aware of her mother calling her to come in, but she only gave a vague wave of her hand. "In a bit," she said. "I...I'm going to take a walk. I had to stay in my cabin most of the trip because of bad weather and storms, I'm still feeling rather cramped and I'd like to stretch." Without waiting for a reply, she began heading into the gardens, her feet seeming to move with a mind of their own, almost as if she were in some sort of a trance.

As she walked, she reflected on what the last two years had been like. After she had returned from Underland, it hadn't been long before the whole world began to seem rather...topsy-turvy to Alice. Things had sort of taken on a bit of a surreal quality, and without even realizing it, she'd started to pinch herself at least once every few hours or so, and she'd kept it up so frequently that it ended up becoming a subconscious habit that she did without even being aware that her mind had sent the command for it to happen. She knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was silly to have started in the first place, whether she'd realized she had started or not, because the rational part of her knew that none of this was a dream anymore than Underland had been. But the more dominate side of her continued to hold onto the belief, just as her rational side had in Underland, that she _must _be dreaming, and that if she just kept on pinching herself (even sticking herself with needles, hatpins, and the like from time to time when she found one), then sooner or later, she would wake up to find herself in the room she'd stayed in at Marmoreal in the White Palace the night before the Frabjous Day, her ears met with the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock that rested on the mantle in that room.

She wanted to wake up.

She finished what she had needed to do, answered the questions that needed to be answered, and now it was time for her to fulfill her promise to the Hatter. She was ready to go back to Underland, and this time, she wanted to stay there, having come to the conclusion that it was where she belonged and that it was her true home, because it was where she was understood and welcomed and fit in, and because it was the place that she loved more than anywhere else in the world. Besides, she was sick and tired with her lost sense of direction. She'd had enough of not knowing which was up and which way was down, of seeing her own tears hitting the ground at her feet when the sense of homesickness brought on by the very thought of Underland became too much for her to bear. She was fed up with this dream. It had lasted long enough.

Why didn't she wake up?

As she wandered aimlessly through the gardens of her family's estate, she began speaking to herself, which was something she'd been doing a lot in the past two years. She carried on quite a good conversation, just as she had many times before. She talked about things like various sorts of tea and styles of hats, of crowns and flowers and rabbits and hares and mice and caterpillars and bread-and-butterflies and rocking-horseflies and dragonflies and cats and riddles and above all, she talked of ravens and writing desks and debated with herself over the various theories she had come up with in the last two years over what it might be that made them alike. Some of her personal favorites were

1. Neither could speak Aboveground, but might in Underland (though she wasn't sure since she'd never encountered either while there)  
2. If it was made by the right hands, a writing desk could be just as beautiful and elegant as a raven in appearance  
3. If it wasn't in a very good shape, then a writing desk might make a noise similar to that of a raven  
4. She had encountered writing desks of plenty of colors during her time overseas, including black, just like a raven  
5. Ravens were known to use it as nest material, so apparently both were fond of paper to some extent, and finally, the most likely one in her mind was that  
6. It had something to do with feathers

And really, what did she have to lose by this point? What did it matter if someone heard the conversations with herself and accused her of being mad? She was mad, and she knew it. Mad as a hatter, in fact, and she wouldn't have had it any other way. After all, all the best people were, and that included _her _Hatter. It occurred to her then that she had learned everyone's given name on her last trip to Underland with the single exception of the Hatter's. She decided right then and there that she would make it a point to ask him what it was this time. Whatever it was, she was sure that it was every bit as unique and wonderful as he himself was.

She often would wish upon stars during her travels, though for what exactly, even she had never really known. Maybe that she could've gone back in time to explain to her younger self the truth about the "dream" that she had so often had as a child.

"No matter now, I suppose," she said to herself, "what's done is done. No use crying over spilled milk. Or...perhaps it would be spilled tea in this case? Either way, back to my world of wonder soon enough, then no more troubles, no more worries, nothing to fret over..." She pinched herself on the shoulder, squeezing and giving the skin a firm twist more roughly than any she had given it in quite a while, enough so that even though she'd gotten to where she was indifferent and had stopped reacting to the pain of her own pinches and prickings from doing it so often, this one managed to elicit a cry from her lips. She paused in her walk, frowning in irritation rather than pain as she rubbed the afflicted spot through the fabric of her sleeve. "I just want to wake up," she muttered, "is that really too much to ask at this point?"

Why had nobody thought to wake her?

She felt as if she'd lost her way somehow and wanted to go home. She wished someone would come up from Underland, perhaps McTwisp or Absolem, and take her back Down with them. She tripped suddenly, just barely having time to register that it was a rock that had done it before she found herself tumbling a great distance down a dark hole full of all sorts of objects, from books to furniture to pieces of china to random little trinkets and everything inbetween. She didn't scream like she had last time because she was too overwhelmed with joy at her accidental discovery to even be aware of the falling sensation. It was only when she crashed through the floor of the Round Hall and landed on the ceiling that she let out a small shriek, followed by a cry of "Ow!" when she fell from the ceiling to he floor.

She was awake.  
And she was coming home.

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**Anyone who owns Almost Alice Deluxe or is familiar with the song for whatever other reason shouldn't have a very hard time at all in seeing the connections. Also, her theories on the raven and writing desk thing: **

**One of them is the Real Answer, which I myself figured out. The Answer, of course, has nothing to do with Poe. It's the feathers thing. I may have explained this before in one of my other fics somewhere, I can't remember, but I'm going to do it here just in case:**

**See, back when the _Alice _books were first written, quills were still pretty common, and another name for a quill is a feather pen. Ergo, the Answer is that a raven is like a writing desk because they both have feathers.**

**Alright, so in other news, I am about to go edit and put the finishing touches on the next of these song-based one-shots/drabbles, and it's going to sort of be a companion piece to this one from Tarrant's side of things. Originally I wanted to use "Extreme" by Valora as the base for it since that's the other song on the Deluxe CD that I had never heard before, but I got stuck with trying to do that and ended up using "Angel" by Sarah Brightman, instead. But I'm still determined to figure out a good one to go with "Extreme," because I love how perfectly the chorus fits the Alice/Hatter pairing. I'm also already planning one for another Sarah Brightman song from the same album as "Angel," which is the Dreamchaster album she released in 2013, and the other song from it is going to be "One Day Like This," which if you've never heard before, you need to go listen to, because even if you're not big on Sarah Brightman, "One Day Like This" is a great song and I love the way the end sounds especially because it's two sets of lyrics being sung at once. Also, if you like songs that give goosebumps and/or have a sort of mystical feel for it, go and listen to "Angel." Plus, listening to it might help you better understand why I see it as fitting for Alice and Tarrant, especially with the context of the one-shot I'm about to put up that's based on it. **

**Anyway, I ramble, so I shall shut up now and go get to work on doing what I need to with the Angel-based one-shot and putting it up. :)**


End file.
